Over the last several years there has been a dramatic increase in the use of the open office plan system wherein movable space dividing wall panels are employed to subdivide an open office area into a plurality of work stations. A recent innovation in the open office plan system is to provide ambient and task lighting at the work stations as opposed to general overall illumination from predesigned and prelocated ceiling lighting fixtures. The addition of task and ambient lighting systems to the work stations when added to the prior need of electrical power to the stations for convenience outlets to operate electric typewriters, calculators and other business machines has created the need for total electrification of the space dividing wall panels. Although several such systems are now in existence they have significant drawbacks. In general, these systems have electrical convenience outlets preset and prewired at specific locations thereby fixing the electrical power requirements for the panel system. Several use the same power distribution system for both the ambient and task lighting requirement as well as the convenience outlet requirement which prohibits the selective activation of these two separate systems. Inflexibility is another characteristic of existing systems which permits the system to only be adapted to situations where the electrical power is fed from the floor and require a distinctly different system where electrical power is found in the ceiling of the open office plan area.
The ability to locate convenience outlets based on need rather than restrictive preset locations for these convenience outlets can substantially extend the area which a conventional 20-amp circuit can service. Total integration of the entire system through universal plug-type connectors can adapt the system for both floor and ceiling infeed as well as electrical distribution from one space dividing wall panel to another regardless of the angular orientation between the panels.